001committee meeting we had yesterday uh yeah we are we can we are on live now okay bronco let me know when you start recording we are recording thanks good evening everyone and welcome to the uh regularly scheduled board meeting on february 11th of 2021 for the san carlos um school district um thank you everyone for joining with us tonight um there's a couple changes to the agenda michelle that we need to make um what are the changes that we need okay on consent we want to remove items consent from 10 i j and k since i j okay uh all right any other changes from any of the trustees um to items on the agenda okay hearing none seeing none um is there a motion to approve the agenda with the changes to remove items
00210 i j and k move the agenda as amended thank you carol is there a second second thank you wendy uh all in favor please state by saying aye aye any opposed all right that will carry five zero for the agenda with those changes uh at this time i will take uh public comment on closed session uh items items either 6a or 6b before we adjourn to closed session uh i will ask wendy our clerk to if there's any uh closed session items on that regard um 6a or 6b yes thank you um so 6a um angela notton would like to share her comments verbally so if you can unmute her thank you thank you um good evening everyone my name is angela notton i'm a fifth grade teacher at arroyo and the chair for
003the san carlos teachers associations negotiations team i first want to thank the scta and the district representatives we've been really working together every other week to bargain and collaborate on an agreement that recognizes the hard work our members put in on a daily basis and the need for a living wage that covers our in ever increasing costs i really feel grateful for the work that we've been able to do and that we continue to do and come into agreement on both sides and then secondly i want to follow up on my comments from last week i had asked community members to join me in being an upstander rather than relying on the emotional and often unsubstantiated rhetoric around our return to school recent mainstream and social media outlets have continued to focus on our teachers
004unions and their role in bargaining a return to in-person teaching and learning but they failed to emphasize that the planning needed for return includes a multitude of district employees the decisions made do not rest on the shoulder of an individual or even one small group from either the union or the district side and it is a collaborative effort as we move forward towards implementing our phase three plan to welcome students back on campus i want to take a moment to acknowledge the work of everyone who's been involved in this transition a huge thank you to our custodial staff they work on a daily basis to clean and sanitize our school sites and make them safe for everyone it's actually this group who are there early in the morning before many of us are even out
005of bed and they're there long hours after school when the sites shut down and we're safe at home enjoying our family time to our secretaries lunch servers and the staff who have helped in stepped in to help with contact tracing and weekly testing and ramping up these services for our community thank you to our district nurses who continue to perform services that far exceed their job description they're working with families to understand the constantly evolving health and quarantine guidelines that keep changing and to our school counselors who have reminded us that we must help ourselves be safe physically and emotionally before we can help others to do the same and finally thank you to the administrators who continue to work with our teachers to balance our daily instructional needs along with the social emotional needs
006of all students please i ask everyone that i would like to thank you to everyone who continue to honor the shelter-in-place guidelines help slow the spread and we will get our kids back to school thank you uh thank you angela and thank you as well just for everyone that did as part of your team and negotiations district and cta as well windy do we have any other comments on item 6a or 6b we do not all right in that case i will adjourn us to close session and we will be back hopefully between 30 and 45 minutes thank you do we have everyone michelle are you there or am i just not seeing on my screen i don't see her yet okay well wait a minute for her all right there you are uh veronica
007let me know when we're back recording all right thank you very much i will reconvene us from closed session at this time there's nothing to report out from closed session so we will move on to our uh special recognition our spotlight on excellence uh we're excited because we haven't had one of these in a couple meetings so uh michelle i will allow you to give the introductions we'll go from there right well good evening um trustees and public i love the spotlight on excellent but we've been a little bit busy to do this but we have to take time to recognize and celebrate some happy things and tonight uh we want to celebrate skef and their new uh community builder and fundraiser that they started this year in response to covid so since they couldn't
008really have some of their typical gatherings where they build community and also raise funds for the district like the town dinner or revel at the devil some of those in-person things uh they they came up with a new plan to really promote literacy and community so tonight we're going to celebrate the skef readathon uh their first first event maybe it will become an annual after this and i just want to celebrate that so who should i introduce will it be you jen rudy or kathy parlor i think i'm going to start all right thanks kathy so good evening everybody i'm kathy parmer lohan the executive director of the san carlos education foundation for 39 years skef has been dedicated to making sure that all san carlos students have a well-rounded education strong schools mean a
009vibrant more connected community and brighten the future for us all it's with this belief that our volunteer board works every day all year long to raise money for our kids and our schools this year is no exception and because of covid we had to completely reinvent many of the things that we do and i'm so proud of our team of volunteers and staff who turn this turn this uh pandemic into something positive and and joyful um i'm especially grateful to all of you teachers and principals who participated it's probably been the most inclusive and all um all everybody in event we've ever done and we're so happy about it and and really truly i think this is going to become a tradition so with that i'm going to turn it over to the people who
010actually made it happen debbie blucher our our amazing volunteer christopher cashup who's our event coordinator and they're going to share with you some highlights of the readathon so thank you everybody me debbie or you uh you i'm going to pull my screen up so let me okay well uh i don't know where the idea started but uh probably maybe debbie's idea maybe rebecca's idea maybe kathy's idea but other school districts have been doing this for a long time and um we reached out to them and and uh some of them said it's very labor intensive like belmont next door said you need lots of volunteers and we said oh no no no no we're not going to go with lots of volunteers or uh so we tried to do as much as we could online
011with the um with the minutes and everything and the we don't want to be tabulating little pieces of paper now um we launched it with a website that does the pledge pages and then a nice volunteer from nearby one of the other districts created this online minute tracker so we know that not every kid put their minutes into the online minute tracker but those who did they read books there was a over 400 000 minutes were read over 136 000 or 39 000 dollars i think we need 19 more dollars to get to 139 but uh 139 000 dollars have been raised so far um over 1600 kids signed up to participate and over uh 800 of those or 700 of those then actually logged their minutes on the online minute tracker so you ready
012to share your screen debbie yeah i just want to be sure i can share my screen because i just tried and said i couldn't do it so i don't know if one of the hosts can make sure that i can do that so really yeah as kathy was saying it was really thanks to the uh well thanks to debbie thank you stephanie kumar who was a nice design a new website i think we have a new long-term volunteer there um and thanks to the teachers and principals who really really carried did all made it happen so they they were championed it and um and the kids ran with it so it was uh been a lovely experience you go debbie okay can everyone see my screen yes great okay so this is our first year
013of our skeff readathon 2021 and um like christopher said we didn't quite know when we were getting into but um we're so happy and excited um but it wasn't just us what was actually was our team so um our teams myself christopher stephanie kumar who he mentioned stephanie brill and roberta marks we all worked very hard since the summer but it wasn't just us it was our partners and our the community like christopher said we had over we had 1644 registered students um that registered for the readathon we couldn't have done it without them we had incredible support from our teachers and principals which we just thanked from the bottom of our hearts we absolutely could not have done it without them we also had some other great community partnerships we partnered with the sametail
014county libraries um we had um a dedicated librarian from belmont michelle ing who was amazing who helped us out with all kinds of things getting book bundles for us helping us host all of our events um just always there um ready to bounce ideas off of and talk to reading lists she was amazing and the whole system was great we also partnered with reading bug um who helped us get some of the author events and also had reading lists available for us and then also put our events on their calendar we partnered with week of the family we were on their calendar we attended some of their meetings and um had a collaborative effort with them the golden state warriors also uh chipped in some great prizes for us for kids that had registered early
015and of course our inaugural readathon sponsor was dwell realtors so we thank them too and then this at the bottom is actually the banner that was supposed to go across laurel street but i don't know if you remember the very high winds but that that was the day it was supposed to go up so instead it went to burton park for two weeks on the cedar side and it's actually still there i just saw it tonight so if you haven't seen it drive by before they take it down so what we really wanted to concentrate on was fostering a love of reading um as you can see the total as of uh i think yesterday the total student reading minutes logged was four thousand and four hundred nineteen thousand and seventy five which is pretty
016incredible on our website um you can see the url right down there we had a lot of reading inspiration because we really wanted to make this a community effort we wanted to make it all about fostering the love of reading so um we have a few really cool things we have a san carlos school district reading inspiration and student stories and this is really highlighting what's happening across the district across all the schools so some of the really innovative programs that might be happening at some of the schools that you know some people may not be as familiar with across town and now it was just a way to highlight all the wonderful things that are happening across the district and so hopefully we're going to keep that up actually um for a while to
017come because it was really really cool to put that together um we also had a read a book recommend a book contest and this actually was so heartwarming we did this through tribute videos so we asked people to um put in a reading recommendation we reached across everyone in our community from our mayor to the barista at starbucks the lagarza coaches teachers principals um with the fire chief the police chief like all the people we could think of who would the kids would recognize and be into and then we started getting students submitting them so we also have student book recommendations and we also read read alouds so a bunch of people also put in read alouds which is so so heartwarming and great so that was really cool to see um we also had
018reading lists on social justice anti-racism and celebration of diversity that san matteo county libraries helped us out with that um on our website are also numerous story times and read aloud videos and podcasts from all different places like the reading bug has a great library of them the san matteo county libraries um the san carlos charter center has a bunch of cool read alouds the exploratorium has some amazing science read alouds that we've discovered and then we discovered this amazing man mr lamada who is um right here in the bay area out of oakland and he does these read alouds every week or multiple times a week he's so charming and heartwarming you should look him up on facebook so his links are on our website too and then we also had um a poetry
019and spoken word section with the national youth poet laureate who most people now know amanda gorman who spoke at the inauguration so these are just two of our tribute videos we have i think over 50 or 60 we have so many you can check them out on our website but these two are so endearing um so we just want to show you a couple of them hello he's from a little school school room two i like this dog man book because they're chasing away bad guys such as dog man um this little kitty over here and uh robot that this bad guy built and she built that little kitty i like this book because they're chasing away bad guys because i don't like bad guys in my life thank you bye have a nice day
020oh and then we have one more so we'll show you hi there my name is caitlin sappage and i'm artistic director at san carlos children's theater i'm here at the reading bug bookstore on laurel street with one of my favorite books this is called ban this book by alan gratz it's great for ages eight through 12 and it's a really lovely story about censorship about standing up for your rights about taking charge of your own education and it really creates some great discussion points so if you wanted to read this with a friend or a family member and continue the discussion after you have finished the book it's a really great way to introduce your children to these topics so that was just a couple of the there are many many book uh read alouds
021and um other tribute videos we have which are just i would recommend to check them out so also during this um readathon we were all in with our events and activities we want to make it interesting and exciting for all the kids so we had two author events one was with jenny home who is the author of the baby mouse series she happened to also just come out with a middle school age book called the line of mars so we got to do a younger um read a uh author event and one for middle school kids which was fantastic and then we also discovered amazing author um jesse benet and she's up in sacramento and she just came out with a book also called lift which is a wonderful thing at this time so um
022she was also amazing thanks to our wonderful librarian at um over in belmont we had four book trivia events two dog man one wings of fire and one harry potter that were very um well received so um we would love to do those again it was really cool we were inspired by charter who had a um harry potter trivia event also um and then it else our book fair coincide with black history months we had reading lists for um which with diversity and inclusion and anti-racism we also celebrated world read aloud day which was february 3rd and on our website now we have book bingo and bookshelf scavenger hunt so people can be inspired after the read athon and then we had an entire calendar of books um authors story time events for every single
023day of the read-a-thon and that's actually still up on our website which you can check out there um and then we actually raised some money which is great um so we ended up raising as of just now i just checked we're one hundred thirty seven thousand nine hundred sixty one dollars and all going to our san carlos schools um our donation page is going to be up for about another week and if uh if you want to donate if anyone else wants to put in any last minute donations from family and friends and all read-a-thon donations are eligible for an employer matching and then we really want this to be a legacy we called it the first annual read-a-thon which was a little tongue in cheek but um since 2021 but it was a great
024success we hope to continue this for years to come um our read-a-thon website is going to stay up for reading inspiration and the page we created the san carlos school district reading inspiration and student stories we hope to blossom that into a district-wide math and science inspiration pages also to highlight some of the other great things happening in the district um we are going to be hosting a reading reception in a couple weeks to honor the kids who really embodied the spirit of the read-a-thon so it's not about what how much they read or how many you know how much money they raise it's all about just this love of learning and those we've asked the principals to highlight a couple kids from every school so we're going to have a special celebration for them
025and all the participants get a certificate so they will be getting that soon too and we also have a ton of books donated by the library um hundreds of them and we're also going to be giving those books out to kids who um really showed a lot uh who read a lot over the couple last couple weeks and finally we just want to say thank you to everybody it truly was a community event it was so heartwarming just everyone we reached out to all throughout the community whether they're involved in the schools or not just embrace this so wonderfully um so we want to say thank you to all the kids who read the parents principals teachers all of our partners we mentioned the beginning our sponsors and our entire community for all the enthusiasm
026creativity and support and we could never have done this without our whole village so thank you thank you so much skev debbie christopher i just think this was a a well received activity and i really hope it can go on uh year after year so thank you for that yeah thank you as well to uh debbie and chris and all of skev for you know this great pivot as well but also something that i think was enjoyed by the community i know it was a hit in my household um as well so i greatly appreciate it and i'm glad to see the creativity and hopefully we can keep these things going uh we will move on to uh item uh 10 uh our consent agenda we had some changes to it earlier but uh is
027there these are items just so everyone knows we find routine in nature or with you know not requiring more discussion amongst the board um is there an approval of the consent agenda from the trustees approval of the consent agenda items 10 a through h thank you carol is there a second second thank you irene all in favor please state by saying aye aye aye uh any opposition hearing none the consent agenda will pass uh five to zero uh moving on to information item 11 um this is information for the board um and item 11a is the california resilient schoolyards which i believe is mindy and hans uh if i'm correct correct thanks neil um we have the opportunity to uh participate in this great effort um this is a grant from the city county association
028of governments of san matteo county so uh without further ado and who has more information than i do i'm going to introduce our wellness coordinator mindy gill hi everybody good to see you yeah i just want to give a big shout out to all the people that made this happen this grant has actually been about six years in the making and it's thanks to our partners at the san matteo county office of education who brought folks together again and again on the topic of climate resilience environmental education you know we received our 2018 green ribbon school award for that work and as a result it really gained the attention of other community partners so ccag went back for us they wrote this grant on our behalf they were very inspired by teachers like i see
029ella painter here um charu the lotty um who came together on a saturday last year to install a rain barrel and a rain garden and they thought wow teachers want to do this the kids want to do this we've got something here this this could really make a difference so um anyway we're headed in a great direction and i'll have veronica show this video i think uh for tonight mindy what we decided the board members could watch the video and the public could as as well but in the interest of time we won't view the video during the meeting oh yeah that's fine then um any questions i just have one question for you midi um the just to make sure i'm understanding correctly is the this kind of is a helps design right so
030we build it into our um future facilities plans um in the future right that's kind of what uh my big take on it was but i want to confirm that's what it is with you yeah you're exactly right so the grant they've created it's about ninety eight thousand dollars to hire a firm to create concept plans facility plans that um not only help us you know withstand drought and heat and design flexible learning spaces you know mitigate when we have these these extreme weather events like beby just mentioned about the high winds and the floods and so forth but um they're really going to interact with our teachers and our students and our neighbors to create spaces that are engaging and um inspire climate change mitigation so it's a set of plans that we're going
031to get it looks like these schools or three campuses will get a whole set of plans other campuses might get kind of a modified plan um and then they're hoping to scale this countywide so we're we're the first ones who get who get this benefit trustees any other questions for mindy i know this is an exciting project and something she's been working on for a long time but also being inspired by others so are there any questions or informational questions clarifying questions for mindy and hams just thank you mindy you've really you know established san carlos's reputation as a leader in this area and this is a great opportunity to come to us because of it so thank you and the teachers and the rest of the leadership and the students for making this happen
032it's going to be a great thing for san carlos thank you all right i will move us on um to 11 uh b our sunshine csea negotiations uh proposal for the 2021 school year um so michelle uh if you just want to update us on what this is um and then we can ask you any questions if there are any this is the opportunity for our classified association csea to uh sunshine their proposal for things that they would like to negotiate with the district this year so this is informational only for the board and the public and you'll see a little bit later on we have our own sunshine proposal from the district that will help open up the negotiating activities with our classified association trustees any questions for dr harmar regarding the proposals in
033the sunshine from csea seeing no questions um thank you michelle and thank you csea for always your continued i think you know i like to call it good faith but really just good teamwork um and the negotiations as well and uh while i while we're talking about csea i also want to just thank uh vicki and corey for being amazing presidents they've been great leaders since i've been here and it it looks like they're going to hand off their batons to other leaders and they're going to have other folks take over some leadership there so i just want to publicly thank corey and vicki for being great collaborators problem solvers and just a lot of fun to work with too so just a little shout out to them uh and moving on then to 12a
034um our return to schools update i know there's been a lot of information about it but michelle um if you have kind of give us some clarifying information of where we're at and any changes that may have occurred since the last time we saw you well i have to say i i went to five out of the six pta meetings this week and our kids and our families are so excited and i i think that's the the message i want to bring um everyone's excited that we're moving forward um our our parents had a lot of good questions during our pta meetings as we engage just more of question and answer this week and there were a lot of questions about next year which is not surprising the challenge is we don't have a lot
035of answers about next year until the state and county health guidance gets more clear around how next year will look so as soon as we know more information of course we'll be sharing it with our community and the board but we're all we're very excited we're moving forward with our our phased in plan as a reminder our tk and kinder and first graders will have their orientation sessions right after the breaks the week of the 22nd then our second and third graders will have their orientation sessions the next week and then fourth and fifth we were very intentional about rolling this out slowly because each time we do one of these phases it takes the whole district office staff and the nurses and the transportation and there's a lot of operational things that have to
036start rolling into place each time we phase in another group of students so that was another question that we responded to during our meetings this week as well so just know our kids are thrilled they're excited thank you to our teachers and staff for all their hard work in getting ready for this return and we got some news today a little bit of news is being released about teacher vaccinations education workforce will likely start the vaccination process as early as monday the 22nd of february we don't have a lot of details around that yet but we did get some signaling from our county today and the county office of ed that teachers have been prioritized largely based on a lot of advocacy from a lot of groups our parent groups our senator becker and our
037axa cta a lot of advocacy so we're excited that our teachers are going to be moved toward the beginning of the line of essential workers for this next tier of vaccinations we have been working on our own san carlos prioritization list so we have 320 employees in our district we got we have a giant spreadsheet and we have got to now transfer all of our people in there according to the our phase in plan and the roles different roles that people play so we will have that ready and completed by the end of tomorrow and the county has access to that sheet so as soon as things start rolling the county will actually take data from that sheet and start doing invitations for vaccinations appointments so it could happen as early as the 22nd so
038we just want to make sure everybody's ready i'll send a little update to our staff tomorrow about this by tomorrow i should have more firm information for them as well i also wanted to clarify we really are asking for a lot of parent help in this return and parents have been asking all year what can we do to help you know how can we help and we will do whatever it takes and i've really been emphasizing that we need parents to really become part of our staff and our labor force we we really need parents to do a couple things one our elementary principles are really asking for help with drop-off and pick up we did clarify today that can be a volunteer role but the volunteers must be trained they must be part of
039our fever free they must be you know trained to follow all the protocols those volunteers will help at the curbside essentially helping with pick up and drop off and just management then we need parents to apply for campus supervision jobs so that we are ready for phase four on our elementary campuses when we really need help with supervising recess and breaks so we definitely want our parents to just step up we know it's not a high paying job but we cannot have volunteers do that work we really need to pay people to do that work for liability and safety reasons so we're really asking our parents to please sign up jump jump on to our adjoin apply for the job talk to your principal about what you can do you know maybe just a couple
040hours a week is all all you can do and that would be much appreciated we also need substitute teachers we've had a sub shortage all year as most of you know and we really are asking our parents that if you have a bachelor's degree and you're willing to help out please contact our hr office and apply you don't have to have a teaching credential what we will do yeah i'm back on i'm not sure what happened there you do not need to have a teaching credential to be a substitute but you need to have a bachelor's degree in order to get an emergency substitute credential with the state so we really want to encourage our parents because we have a shortage so if a teacher gets sick and they're not able to come to work
041that means kids can't come on campus either so we really are reaching out and asking our parent community to help us out during this time in some way either as a campus supervisor a substitute we also need substitute custodians to help out even if it's just part-time a couple hours a day so we can really really use help you know anyone in the family if you have college kids at home they could probably help with this you know our campus supervision jobs or our our custodian jobs they're all part-time we just need all hands on deck and everyone here can ship in and help in some way and then if you do have a bachelor's degree and would like to help out with some some on-campus learning or even distance learning we need more substitute
042help so please consider so that we can help support our teachers and our kids in our return most of the detailed communication now about how to return to campus is coming from principals our principals are sending out lots of information to our k1 families especially to ramp up but also their second and third to get ready and then a couple of weeks after the break of course then our four or five principals will be sending out more details about their phase in return another i think important question that keeps coming up is what about our middle schoolers why are you leaving them out they need to be back too it's important to remember that we received a waiver for the state to bring elementary kids back early in the purple tier middle schoolers cannot come
043back until the red tier so we have to be patient and wait until the conditions approve in the county until our middle school kids can come back on to campus so it's not a decision necessarily by our teachers or by the board it's really driven by state health guidelines when people bring up the the point that some middle schools are already in session i remind them that they had already returned to in-person learning before the winter break so because they were already in session they can continue in session even though it's in purple it's schools like ours that are just now coming on to campus the middle schoolers have to wait until the red tier so just want to make sure that we're we're all clear on that piece and i think that clarifies the
044things that are coming up for now so what questions do you have or or comments well first before we take questions or comments let's just make sure we take the public comment on it if there is any windy if you want to start there and then we'll have our discussion after we hear the public comment okay great there are several and they not many but several and they did say to just go ahead and read them versus them sharing them so let me just make sure so this is joe murphy return to school update um dear san carlos board members and administration my name is joe murphy and i'm the band director at tierra linda i would like to inform you about a q a that we san carlos school district teachers proactively hosted on
045tuesday night after hearing many concerns from our teachers about the safety and protocols surrounding reopening school grounds it became apparent that we as teachers needed with some reassurance from other teachers and administrators who have actually been teaching in person for months now so we reached out to teachers and administrators from the menlo park district as well as st trials here in san carlos we had three teachers and our principal join our meeting and over 55 san carlos school district teachers attended to hear about their experiences this was an informative q a concerning all of the questions worries and concerns our san carlos school district teachers have with returning to the classroom and providing the students of san carlos with an exceptional education questions about proper ppe where the kids eat lunch cleaning between classes common
046areas testing ventilation student well-being and academics were all topics that were discussed i want to publicly thank the panel for volunteering their time to speak to scsd teachers about their experiences i'd also like to commend the scsd teachers for their attendance and for asking very important questions about our safe return to the classroom there were no opinions shared or debated in this meeting as it was strictly to gather information to better equip our teachers to return to the classroom i'm bringing this to the attention of the community to show parents administrators and the board that the scsd teachers are and have been committed to providing the best education we believe we can deliver we are eager to get back into the classroom to see our students in person we miss our students so much but
047we also want to make sure we do it safely and effectively we've been hearing theories and data about safety practices and protocols but we need to hear from living breathing people who have been in the trenches for months now we know that not everything will go perfectly in the scsd rollout so we took it upon ourselves to speak to other teachers about how they've adjusted and pivoted and dealt with adversity we got many of those answers on tuesday night i hope that we can come together as a community to give each other the benefit of the doubt knowing that we're all doing sorry just this is an unwieldy template we're all doing our best teacher parent administrator and board member and we have the best intentions and motives in mind let's not forget that we're
048all in this together and together is how we'll move forward effectively okay next this is from christy wegener my name is christy wegener and i have a five-year-old daughter who is in the special education k-2 class at heather elementary i first want to thank the board and the teachers union for coming to an agreement on a return to work plan that does prioritize the youngest and most vulnerable students returning to school while we are in the purple tier my daughter who has moderate special needs has been distance learning for nearly a year now and i can't begin to tell you the strain that this has put on our family as well as the regression she has experienced in meeting her goals we must continue to work towards getting the most vulnerable students back into the
049classroom full-time my daughter deserves more than 1.4 hours a week of in-person instruction we also must strongly advocate to prioritize vaccine distribution for teachers the longer we keep the children out of the classroom and without the proper educational support the larger the ripple effect will be of this pandemic i appreciate your time and thank you for the job you and the teachers are doing okay another one on 12a this is from kamala um men menbauer sorry if i didn't pronounce that right i'm a parent in the sasd um in sasd i'm very concerned that the district has decided to skip phase two in the opening school plans this is the time that would have provided urgent learners time in person for core subjects to assist with those who are not able to learn through digital
050learning by skipping this phase and going straight to phase three urgent learners do not have any additional in-person assistance with core subjects they will go with all the other students for social emotional time by doing this the district is keeping a group of students who are unable to learn through digital means from free and accessible education one of my sons is in this group he has auditory processing disorder he does not comprehend things spoken to him as others do the answer to our request for help have been additional zoom time this does not work it is further frustration for him for the teacher and our family my husband and i spend six hours each day helping him access his school work this is not sustainable i have had to take family medical leave in order
051to assist him in school on days when my husband is unable to this means getting two-thirds of my salary since i have used all vacation in sick days we are not at the end of the school year and even with us working with him he's still falling further behind there are many kids who cannot access learning through digital lessons some like my son because of learning differences and others because they do not have adult help at home to assist them or access to reliable internet or a space to study we are going on a year now of a program that some children are not able able to access and learn from through on no fault of their own and this new opening school plan does nothing to address their needs these are children who already
052were dealing with an education gap they are falling further behind i know my son has lost at least a year in math and reading and this was us doing all we can to try to assist him in accessing his lessons he and children like him need to be able to have assistance and an education that does not rely on zoom videos and audiobooks these children need to be back on cameras in person for core subjects they should have been the priority not taken out of the phase plan to return to school i believe i have one more that's it on 12a all right thank you wendy uh trustees um questions for dr harmeier um regards to back to school plan uh any clarifying points anything along those lines you want to discuss all right seeing
053hearing that okay okay give us a second deal i get it we have to see if anybody's going to turn their mic off um two two things one um dr harmeier i just wanted to elaborate just a tiny bit on the um the vaccination prioritization list just to clarify for the public that the prioritizations were actually set by the county office of education with the highest priority being those teachers who are working with special ed students and then teachers who are working or staff who's working with special ed students then staff who's working in person with students on a or community on a regular basis then staff who's working with students and community seldomly and then all so this isn't a structure that we put out we we're just in process of kind of categorizing
054everybody correct yes and the county is really working with public schools and private schools uh so the priority was who is and also early ed you know preschools so the priority was really making sure that those who are currently working with children right now to get them vaccinated and that really kind of drove the priority list because those are the ones who are right now at at highest risk and then after that those who are working remotely and you know or just working with adults right so we really did um work together really as superintendents to look at how we wanted to prioritize collectively we came to agreements and we also looked at starting when when we have to stand in line and get in line the districts with the highest need or highest risk
055areas were would be ahead of districts and communities that had lower risk and lower rate cases as well so it is an equity-based plan where first of all we we acknowledge that we have people working live in all of our school districts everybody is doing something we do have some activity on all of our campuses really prioritizing that first and now that we have teachers coming back that will be working with students we'll be able to put those in priority one as well so i'm really happy that we're able to move forward yeah great um the the other thing this is just a follow-up on the middle school question um since the state isn't allowing for middle schools to be back in person until the um until we are in the red is that it
056is that okay so what is the work that's being done to prepare so that we're ready when we are back in red since hopefully maybe someday soon we will be there or if their teachers are vaccinated maybe that would open it up as well yeah tom megan and kristen are all ready to go with their phase three approach our middle schoolers will attend sessions on mondays on on sites when that time is to come so they too will we'll do a phase in where the first week is an orientation and then the you know and really focusing on the health protocols when that first week comes and then the second week will be focused on instruction so they're ready to roll with that and and then after that starts then they will do more detailed
057work and learn from that on how they're going to be more specific with phase four or hybrid so they have some more work to do on that scheduling and engaging their teachers and their parents more on the phase four planning as well so they're already looking ahead and assuming we're ready to go in phase three and getting ready for phase four as well so do we have a timeline then when that we might be able to share with those middle school families what phase four is going to look like you know what type of design and so forth it'll probably be at least three weeks before we get there we've got some drafting to do we have some drafts staffs are just now starting to see it and start to really internalize how that might
058work so they have more engagement to do with the teachers the principals do and then after that with some site council or parent input from their sites and then when you know we want to be able to get that feedback first and bring that plan then to the association because we still need to work out details and we consult with the teacher's association on actual schedules so at that point once we're ready then we'll bring more information to families yeah i think would just be helpful in board meetings to keep kind of more i do more detailed update on where we are in the process with middle schools because i know middle school parents are very eager to know you know where we are and what to expect and what's happening behind the scenes because
059i know there is a lot of work going on great okay can i uh can i add to that question just carol and and dr harmeier just to see if um the connections program is there an assumption that that can be offered to families that don't for you know health reasons and whatnot don't want to send their kids back so is that something that you can look at in that plan as well yes and uh we we work together today in fact with the principals and they are looking at approaches to serve our connections families as well as our families wanting to come back on campus so some really great work is happening um really they're really kind of reaching out and seeing how other middle schools are tackling these challenges and getting ideas from
060other middle schools so definitely finally i feel a little more confident that we're going to have an approach to support our connections kids when that time comes but it's still still early to share more information at this time okay i just appreciate you know we've been trying to look at you know options you know this entire year right different parents and families have different comfort levels and abilities you know based on their own health needs and and challenges so thank you sarah arene anything else that you would like uh questions clarifying anything like that no do you um i just wanted to say that this is this past week has been such an important milestone it's been kind of a sense that the accumulation of all the steps that have been taking place over the
061months and i thought angela did a terrific job saying not only did our teachers step up but it was also our nurses our custodians our you know our principals it really was team kid and i have always believed that teachers more than anybody have always wanted to be back in their classrooms as long as they could stay safe and be safe and i just call upon parents to follow all the safety precautions and please do take advantage to try to come back and support our staff through those both the volunteer opportunities as well as being campus supervisors or please kind of join the substitute pool our substitute pool often has many members who are age 65 or older and who have been fantastic in pre-pandemic times but may not feel comfortable coming back on the
062campus so we're going to really look to our community to support us through these times sarah anything i don't have any questions i think i just want to express gratitude to our district staff and the scta representatives who have been working together and collaborating and compromising and coming to the table in good faith and to you know those in our community who have really tried over the past three weeks to keep the dialogue respectful and based on empathy and that you know we're all human and doing the best we can in this really difficult time and you know we're all derving deserving of respect and i think in particular our teachers and our staff deserve our respect and gratitude they deserve it every year but they particularly deserve it right now in this time so
063i just wanted to express that and say thank you and that we appreciate your time and your energy that you put into educating our kids and i'll echo everyone as well just to kind of give one thought i know a lot of questions we went around to the pta meetings and tried to be as clear as we can or kind of a lot of the questions that came up was about next year but just to kind of echo what dr harmer said about the points you know we get a lot of information from many different sources about next year and it's almost impossible to plan next month let alone next year at this point in time so you know we're working our best to make sure everyone we get once we get a clear picture
064on what next year will look like we'll start working diligently like we have before you know the hardest part is you just get information about bills and the legislature or what the county is going to do or what the cdc may do that can change everything you know five minutes from now even i think the best example was when we heard nancy mcgee speak today she said that you know this rollout by the county from the vaccinations for teachers has been in the works since january and it can all change in five minutes if the governor signs his name on something so you know those are all the things we're prepared about we're we'll do our best to give you the best plans we can and the timeliness that we can as well but we
065just want you know the community to make sure that's what they know we're dealing with we're more than happy to answer the questions we can the best but it is a difficult time to give you all clear direction because we don't have it as well but i do thank everyone for showing up to those meetings and being with us and we're always around to ask more questions so i appreciate that as well i will move us along then to 12a to approve our 21-22 lcap budget development calendar and i believe that's going to be hans and christine yeah i'll take this one thanks neil you know it's interesting is along the same lines as what you just said there's lots of unknowns with regard to this plan as well you might recall you know in
066years past lcap the local control accountability plan kind of that guiding document for us we generally would bring something like this in december or january have much more granularity with regard to it a lot of training from the county things like that would have already occurred i just went to a training on tuesday about this coming year's lcap and the different pieces of it and you know so we're a little behind on that and by we i mean everybody everybody's a little behind on that and we don't have the level of detail that we would like to have much like what you just shared all of that being said we are still required to have engagement around development of a three-year lcap that will start with next school year and last through 2024 so as
067you were saying it's hard to think past next month or next week in the current environment and we're really going to try to think out three years out and that is the requirement of this lcap so you know with all of that being said we are going to begin our engagement process pretty quickly following the february break and we've added a few items typically i've just given a word document with this in the past and this year christine and i are working together to kind of include some important budget dates as well because really the two go hand in hand so you'll notice that there aren't specific dates about you know when the engagements will be what i can say about those is they'll be via zoom i'll be sending out a communication tomorrow morning
068as i have in the past to all parents asking you know asking for volunteers for the the parent advisory committee which is the required engagement piece for lcap that doesn't mean that we won't be engaging parents through school site council through other means at the school site we also will be engaging our our teachers our administrators around this all required pieces of engagement as we develop our our lcap and our budget development throughout through the the end of the school year obviously it's a pretty quick timeline you know we're just we are very thankful to have a pretty solid group of folks that have have been on these committees in the past and look forward to working with them again even though we're on this much quicker timeline so happy to take any questions or
069christine if you have anything to add please feel free to chime in christine are you there christine is not with us tonight i am sorry she has a family holiday to celebrate tonight i'm sorry i did not mention that earlier well that's all right i just realized that too sorry about that hans can you just give me i want to make sure i'm understanding the calendar for board purposes this is kind of a a good way for the i mean this is essentially i call it kind of twofold one to you know hold staff accountable for the timelines of how we're going to plan the lcap and budget proposal and budget assumptions but also to help with cadence for the board so we know what's coming what should be coming as well is that that's
070kind of the ultimate goal of approving this calendar correct yes that's correct deal okay is there anything very good summary okay i'm here for something um is that anything that we should you know compare it's hard to do these things in off years but you know in the normal year would there be any date changes that may be different you know for us in terms of looking that we can understand like hey maybe this would be should be sooner but this year we're starting it later um anything like that you know it's just hard for me to know that um kind of looking at it this way if that's possible generally budget you know follows a timeline of interims right so those dates are pretty static um what's different is normally i would probably have
071started this engagement process back in december so i would have had one or two meetings with these committees by now um given that our focus has been on opening schools right and literally that has been our the focus of everyone in the organization um and we're not alone on that you know as i said all the all these all the other attendees as we go into into breakout rooms and things we've all shared the fact that with our focus being on getting students back to campus it's been really difficult to try to get this process underway so those are the dates that really are different and that are pushed out some um but you know we want to make sure that the the community and the board knows that we're committed to that level of
072engagement that we've had in the past and even though it's on a quicker timeline and these are dates that you feel that meet your capacity and bandwidth right for your team to meet them that's kind of how this is developed as well correct correct and you know normally we might have had five meetings for example with the pack this year we might have three we might have four okay it's a matter of what we can really fit in dlac we would have met five or six times and we've only met we met with both groups to help develop the lcp earlier in the year and we have not met with them since um you know specifically with those groups although those folks have been parts of other groups that we met with so you know
073so again it's just it's it's a symptom of you know where we've been for the last year and you know uh no no real end in sight and the state is saying move forward trudge forward and so uh you know another piece that we have to consider obviously is um as we as we think about what's what might be happening in summer we don't know we haven't received any you know notifications are we getting money for that could that be part of a program that's another you know kind of um you know curve ball that's been thrown that would need to be part of the cell cap would have to be built in because it's certainly it would it would affect the dollars so um remember it's an overarching plan it includes our budget all
074of our budget and and really accentuates what we're going to do for our unduplicated pupils i think neil just to add to that one thing that we added into this calendar is a march 25th study session for the board so that we can really look at budget assumptions and get direction and clarity from the board as we put together our budget for next year we've had some very difficult budget years in the last two years we still have a pretty fragile budget and we want to make sure that we are really looking at all of our options and our priorities and getting input from the board so that we can build those things into the budget that we bring to you in june hans can i go ahead now go ahead sorry i saw irine
075first and i'll go to you wendy okay hey super fast but michelle i think i think it'd just be nice to kind of share out but i know that you and hans are committed that in your just regular leadership meeting with your site leaders and cabinet that you'll have time to kind of engage them in advance of march 25th so we kind of know the priorities from the site leader perspective yes so this is why the engagement piece is so important because we really need to hear from all the different groups all the stakeholders what are the key priorities that we want to focus on next year and including our principles our principles as well and like hans said it's very difficult to to manage an l cap and the feedback that we as superintendents
076gave to the county office and maybe in an advocacy at the state level is they're asking us to create a three-year plan when we can't even really see clearly what our focus areas can be for next year so we're really advocating to have a really good solid one-year plan for next year and then hopefully let that be drive our work and drive our budget without trying to i really feel like the second and third year goal setting process would really not be very valid and why you jump through those hoops if if we really don't think they're going to be meaningful goals so that's some input that we have superintendents are providing to the state and and just to piggyback on that michelle it's exactly the input that i got from a lot of my
077colleagues about you know as students return to school whether that's now you know in the spring next year we there will be new issues that crop up that we do not know about and so to think that we're going to create a plan that's three years long when we know we're going to have new issues is a little foolish um and so i think you know the concept of a solid one-year plan is is really a great idea they're not passing that forward at this point in time but i do think that's the direction that our county is going to take with us and ultimately it is the county that approves our plan remember that i am 100 supportive of that wendy yeah that makes a lot of sense um thanks for sharing dr harmeyer
078sort of like how you're advocating you know with the superintendents for for that approach i was just looking at the march april kind of time frame in terms of gathering um various stakeholder input and you know it was just i know there's a march 25th meeting around you know kind of looking at budget and how that uh you know plays into the l cap goals i just wanted to say i think this year you know in particular you know we're i i just want to encourage as much opportunity for those various stakeholders to participate um you know sometimes i i realize you know for district staff timing sometimes you have to have a meeting at like 10 30 in the morning but that's not always conducive for parents you know to participate so just kind
079of encouraging you know as much um like multiple opportunities for those stakeholder groups to participate i think you know our goals are going to look a little different in this next year right than maybe in the past um and so that's all i really wanted to ask um thank you for trying to um you know encourage participation and wendy one thing i would say you know while engagement is a little bit more awkward via zoom right um it does allow more access and that will record the meetings and make them accessible um on the district webpage and actually send out you know at the end if you want to give input um we generally all create templates for that and that folks could actually you know include input in different ways than they have in
080the past so um i would anticipate probably having fewer people maybe at the meeting um but maybe more engagement via the recordings that we'll send out so it's it's a plus minus right yeah no that's true um i appreciate that thanks i just have a quick question um i see on february 23rd it says preliminary budget assumptions approved by cabinet which assumptions are those kind of what levels since the board has won't have had um conversations about the budget yet those are going to be mostly operational things uh things that align with the enrollment and staffing numbers that we just met with our principals you know how many teachers do we need if we have this many kids uh custodian ratios a lot of those are just operational things that we need to make sure
081what what the absolute baseline is for all essential spending so our cabinet needs to make sure that's in place so then when we look at funds like our supplemental and concentration grant our supplemental funds we can say okay now how do we want to use these where we do have some flexibility you know so we want to make sure our operational things are all solid in place know exactly where we are with the have to's so when we have some flexibility in other areas we we can have then bring those those numbers forward to for for input i hope that helped great yep thanks sarah anything all right uh we do need to approve this calendar um for kind of give us a guide for the rest of the year so is there a motion
082to approve the 2021 22 l cap and budget development calendar i move to approve 12b the 2021 2022 l cap budget development calendar thank you wendy i'll second it uh so all in favor please state by saying aye aye any opposition hearing none uh that'll be approved five zero um i will move us on to action items uh michelle with the approval of the scta seniority list this is a routine item every year we will confirm with our our teachers and scta members to make sure we have their correct hire date and their units and all the things that are important in a seniority list so this is a routine item and jennifer smith spends a lot of time in our hr department uh surveying all the members and making sure that they've had input
083to to check on their status so uh this is going to always be an agenda item in january february in case we need to go through a reduction in force then we are prepared for that which we would make some decisions about that in february 25th meeting and to make sure that we were meeting the deadline of making decisions about reduction in force before march 15th so uh trustees any questions in regard just to the seniority list seeing no questions uh is there a motion to approve the seniority list i move approval of the seniority list thank you irene okay uh i couldn't tell that's carol or sarah but i'll go with sarah because it's loudest uh so uh all in favor please state by saying aye aye sorry any opposition hearing none that'll be
084approved five zero uh approval of resolution 13 2021 uh hans is this one you or is this michelle either way is fine sorry yeah it doesn't matter i can do it that's fine go ahead hans sure uh this is for a uh provisional internship permit for one of our teachers who is very very close to earning her credential um her credential expires i want to say it's within the month and in order to get through the rest of the year we need to approve this provisional internship permit for her again it's pretty standard routine this is one of our sped teachers and we're excited that she's really close to getting her credential and to retaining her as we move forward all right thank you hans uh any questions uh regarding this resolution all right doesn't
085look like any is there a motion to approve those resolution 13 for 2021 so moved thank you irene is there a second second thank you wendy uh all in favor please state by saying aye aye any opposition hearing and seeing none uh that will carry five zero uh moving on to uh 13c uh the scsd negotiation sunshine proposal with uh csea michelle yeah as i mentioned um before this is the uh district's sunshine proposal to work with our classified association and these will be the articles that we will open up and and talk through with our our classified association so we need approval by the board all right uh any questions regarding um this for dr harmar okay seeing none is there a motion for the sunshine proposal thank you carol is there a second
086second thank you irene uh all in favor please state by saying aye aye aye any opposition hearing and seeing none that will carry uh five zero as well all right moving on to uh future agenda items um are there any i don't think we've had anything surface tonight but are any agenda items trustees that you'd like to see come back um for future meetings yeah i'm just curious when we're gonna our next dei update so uh we can provide an update in our february 25th meeting and we've been making progress um so we'll have more to report at that time on that note carol i can say we did um today send out invitations to the the public and to staff for joining the dei steering team steering committee and so um and we've already
087received several several responses to the form so that's kind of where we are in the process and we can talk more about that on the 25th all right thank you carol uh trustees any other items that you like to come back all right uh we'll move on then to public comment wendy do we have uh any public comment 15a on non-agenda items we do have one um from diane mckwegan and she wanted to share them verbally so i believe she's on the call i am thank you very much uh good evening board of trustees uh my name is diane mckwegan and i've been teaching in the san carlo school district for 21 years now irene i do wanted to say thank you so much for acknowledging our desire as teachers to come back but to
088come back safely we definitely want to be back in our classroom and we're excited about our new mou um my reason for speaking this evening is twofold um one is our need for more nurses and then the current perception of our teachers and the union right now while we've come to an agreement with our new mou one item i'm not sure the board is aware of is that we currently only have 2.2 nurses in our district right now they are to cover all eight schools both students and staff this makes for a total of 428 staff members 2975 students for three people to cover two of the nurses are full-time and one is only 20% all three are currently working way over their contracted hours if this is how it is now with no students
089on campus what's going to happen when students do return the amount of work that goes into every positive test or every time someone fails a fever-free screen is substantial this work will fall on the secretaries and the principals at this point i think it would be wise for the district to start planning now to have an lvn or other health care aid at each site to be able to support staff and students adequately when we are back the other matter i'd like to address is a perception some of the public currently has of the teachers and the union during this pandemic we have gone from being the heroes to being the bad guys our scta president dan lanier was elected by the union knowing that he would represent all of us and advocate for us
090when he is speaking he's speaking of the wants and needs of our members it would go a long way if the board in the district could help mend some broken fences and share with the community some of what i shared heard shared last night at the white oaks pta meeting that the union and the teachers have been working closely and cooperatively together with the district that the district also has its own limitations on how much they can accommodate at one time in turn in terms of returning to school safely which is something that dr harmeier had actually alluded to earlier this evening painting the picture that is the union's fault that we are not back in class full-time is untrue and misleading and this narrative needs to be corrected any work that the district could
091do to help move forward and improve these false perceptions would go a long way in rebuilding trust and re-establishing the sense of community that has been such a strong part of san carlos for so long thank you thank you diane we need to have any more on non-agenda items no that's the only one all right dan then to you for employee group comments and uh neil tonight uh nicole martin is going to speak on behalf of the scta she's one of our executive board officers all right fantastic can you unmute nicole do we need to unmute you okay got here it is thank you good evening board of trustees my name is nicole martin and i am speaking on behalf of the san carlos teachers association i have taught third grade at white oaks for
092the last 17 years i have been a scta leader for many years and i'm currently an executive board officer serving all the teachers nurses and school counselors in our eight schools for far too long scta members have been leaning on dan lanier our union president to speak for us we've allowed him to stay up until all hours every thursday night to represent us at board meetings while we were able to take care of our own family's needs relax and go to sleep at a reasonable bedtime i would like to thank dan lanier for his continuing service and dedication to our union he stands up for us and now we must stand up for him i want to be very clear when dan lanier makes an employee group comment he is speaking for the majority of
093our union members not just himself he is speaking for teachers nurses and school counselors when people within our community take to social media to demean threaten and bully our president they demean threaten and bully all of us the ones who are once again putting their children ahead of our own well-being and safety what is wrong with this picture we are making a plea to each of the board members tonight we are coming to you because the district office principals parents and the san carlos community take your lead on how to treat us we want to feel valued supported and respected but we don't have a voice or a platform to defend ourselves against others that represent a small fraction in this community how can you help to create a climate in which your employees feel
094heard and supported first you can start by replacing employee group comments alongside the public comments show us and the community that you value our opinions and voices before you have discussions and make decisions we are on the front lines of our district and have history ideas and knowledge that should be considered please give us the same courtesy as the general public second you can take a stance a public stance on defining on how you want your employees to be treated we need the sixth c compassion right now and we are proposing the seventh c commitment commitment to all of the employees in our district that you are asking to risk not only their health but the health of their families a commitment to help them feel heard valued and respected neil leighton's words of appreciation
095in his message to the community this week felt like a step in the right direction yesterday another step was taken when neil and iran met a group of teachers as part of the climate council it felt authentic and hopeful and powerful if there's anything that we've learned in the recent past is that words and actions matter this is not a time for silence and being a bystander while one of our own has been treated so poorly words and actions in a public forum matter and influence others please use your words and actions to heal the damage that has been done and restore a respectful tone of partnership to our community thank you for allowing us to be heard thank you dan for those comments and that brings us to board comments would anyone like to
096start tonight i will go but not first if somebody could start sure i'll start i mean technically iran i think you did start by saying to have someone else go but i'm just gonna leave that for another time it's been a long couple weeks for everybody i'm sure i speak for a lot of board work i say we're exhausted from kind of all the work we've done and everything else but more importantly just from the whiplash of back and forth on everything you know i always echo or try to echo the most in these regards that the hard work that everyone's putting in it's always appreciated we did get a chance as nicole said irin and i to have a meeting and start the climate committee as well to you know kind of have a
097conversation about the district about where we're going our futures and how we all did i think what nicole said best is working together to make what san carlos is special so i appreciated everyone that was at the meeting i appreciate everyone that gave me their feedback but you know just like it was with the climate committee and teachers and petech i appreciate everyone's honesty with us as board members through these tough times because it's not easy on everyone as well but knowing where you stand and knowing why you stand there is the best way how we move forward so i appreciate everyone you know i always like to say is these times are tough but the best part about them is if you know we're not going through them alone we're going through them together
098so we're grateful for that so i appreciate everyone and now irin you're next um so to i want to speak to both my fellow board members but but also to you know teachers and into the community as well who's who's listening i think one of the things i learned i thought we had a very productive um first meeting with kind of a of the climate committee i thought the teachers did a great job in just like showing up saying we're here to just collaborate and heal and just like strengthen trust this has always been a very special place this town for decades but we do need to do some healing um and i think it was a really great first step let me share out like some of the things i learned i learned for
099myself that maybe i haven't been using my voice as much and also to just say out loud some things that i thought was so obvious but but not that that the reason i serve here is to really um yes we we as a team are all here for the students because and the teachers teach because they want to teach the students but central to students learning is teachers teaching and how we all have to support that and with the staff and i don't think of it all as like a top down dynamic myself i think of it more as a series of concentric circles where if students are at the center they're surrounded by their teachers and their parents who love them who are supported by the principals who are supported by like the district
100staff who are supported by skef and healthy cities and who are supported by the board and i see my role as a board member to really try to understand everybody's role and to keep everybody knitted together and i do agree that there is just no role there is no there is no reason for us um and for it to have extreme language i mean when we see that extreme language we need to address it head on and i will stand up for that and i'm hopeful and i'm and part of the reason i'm hopeful is although we've heard some extreme voices in the community that may have felt made some of our members employees feel unappreciated i've had just as many conversations with knowledgeable compassionate parent leaders who just want to kind of knit our
101community together and support our teachers and i'm so grateful for them and i met many of them again at our pta meetings and i um i'm going to stop because i i'm talking too much um but i'm going to try to get into classrooms more um i heard that to my fellow board members i heard that you know many teachers would they appreciate it every time that we can kind of like get to get into their classrooms and be with schools more and it's been hard in this pandemic year but that's always important to us thank you arine uh wendy sarah carol my my comment tonight this is really to express appreciation for um the and i've said this before the tremendous amount of hard work and dedication and collaboration that um scta and our
102and their members and the district leadership and their negotiations team and scta negotiations team that everybody has demonstrated in really um coming to agreements and good faith um and to get our schools opened again i think it's just a real testimony to even with all all of the noise that's been happening in the background and there's been a lot of noise that it doesn't distract from the work that is going on the important work that's going on in the background um and that we got things done and we got it done together and so i am really appreciative for that spirit of collaboration um and that um that an agreement was reached just lots and lots of gratitude for that and i think it is really important to have that tone of collaboration um mutual
103respect assuming best intentions on all sides um and um and just uh really encouraging our community to come with that spirit as well so um so thank you um thank you everybody who's been involved in that and that's what i'm committed to moving forward probably to go next unless wendy you wanted um i you know expressed gratitude earlier and i will express that again and um you know be explicit that anything that other than respect and empathy has no place in the discussions that we're having as a community and the hard things we're trying to do together we have to do them together um and our teachers and our staff deserve our respect and gratitude and we can right we want to teach our all of our kids that they can disagree and still respect
104other people and treat other people with kindness and you know as adults i hope that we um can model that um i received uh the board received an email this morning that um has made an impression on me and highlighted something that i think is um just important something we can hold on to right now um i think you know we know that in-person school is going to look very different from our students and what they were used to before covid um and the reason that we can bring them back and know that it's going to be meaningful and beneficial even though it's different is because of our teachers right it's their dedication it's their presence it's their energy that is going to make this new version of in-person school impactful for our students um
105and i really am going to hold on to that right now and i hope that our whole community will as well um you know that we can we can disagree on a lot of things but we can all agree that um our teachers are what make our schools special and um are the reasons you know that we want our our kids back is you know it's not just you know it's not a playdate with friends it's not you know just time on the playground it's the time with their teachers in person and that really meaningful irreplaceable um relationship that exists so um yeah i think i will stop there but that's what i want to say thank you thank you it's great to hear um from other trustees because this is our opportunity to share
106sort of you know what we've experienced um i was really glad to hear um irene and neil kind of share out about the climate committee and also what nicole had to say um because we're not able to you know attend all these meetings and so you know just kind of reiterating what irene said about you know some of those kinds of meetings it is about healing right now and about sort of rebuilding some trust that because of um you know social media and and other forms of communication that has been trying to sort of it it's been tearing down rather than building up and i think that we we are creating opportunities through a climate committee and whatnot to help repair and and and listen to each other um as sarah said in a respectful
107way so um you know i appreciate that neil and irene are leading the charge on that um that's been something that we've been wanting for like a year and covid hit and it really sidelined us in many ways so i'm just very encouraged um because yeah we we need to have those opportunities to hear from um not and and sorry that the teachers are not the only ones on that um committee as well the you know um classified staff and you know um are also there so i'm just saying it's a great opportunity for us to listen to one another and to understand um and and i just wanted to add to people's gratitude tonight that you know when i showed up at the pta meeting for you know central and arroyo the first things
108out of my mouth were gratitude toward the teachers union and what we've been able to accomplish together as a district over the last two to three weeks you know sort of reaching this um agreement and just real gratitude for the hard work that went into that so um i just want you to know that that's on all of our minds right now when we speak with you know anyone um about you know what what we're focused on and and what we're doing um and um yeah i just really encourage um our community to support our principals and our and our teachers um in as many ways as you're capable of doing um after the winter break to really um volunteer and um support the needs that they've identified um and uh i think i mean
109i've already pledged to do what we can i guess we're not allowed to be paid because we're board trustees but i will do whatever i can on campus um to be there and support support you all um so thank you again and um you know as we go into this next phase just also of reopening and sort of we we understand like anxiety levels might be you know just as high or higher um than they they may have been already so just um i don't know i think we just have to remember to put on our own oxygen mask first take care of yourself and i think that there are a lot of resources that we can avail ourselves of as a district around mental health well-being there's a lot of effort at the state
110level um through california department of ed um around around that so i just want you all to know that that's top of mind for me as well as like mental health and well-being of our staff and our students and our families so um we have fabulous um counselors um you know and i know that they probably know of these resources but you know just for the community at large just um i think we all know that teachers want to be supportive so don't hesitate to reach out you know for for you for yourself and um thank you very much and look forward to connecting after the break all right thank you trustees uh dr harmer the last word i really appreciate how we have worked together with our association and i want to remind everybody
111that san carlos teachers came to an agreement back in october to come back and work with kids well before any other districts like us agreed to come back and we were gearing up ready to go teachers were back in the classrooms and then conditions changed so i want to go back and remember how far we came so early and then we have to realize conditions change and things got bad all over the country all over the world and here we came back as soon as we caught back from the winter break and said hey let's try again let's see what else we can do let's accelerate and our teachers came to the table and again stepped up i'm really proud of this teachers association in the group and angela noughton leading the negotiations team she's
112done an amazing job because she's got a really hard job she's really trying to listen to her members and then bring those issues to the table and and does an excellent job of communicating so i really want to acknowledge angela and all the work that she has done with the negotiations team and uh it's hard hard work but i'm really proud of our district i'm proud of our teachers and our scta group and i'm sorry it's gotten so tense and so difficult and i think we're all running on a little little stress and low energy and we have to be forgiving of each other when those things happen we can acknowledge that things get rough and then kind of acknowledge our parts apologize ask for forgiveness and and some grace and we move forward i'm
113looking forward to coming back after the break and seeing kids and so thank you to everyone for all the work we really do need to ask our parents in my message i sent out yesterday is this collective social contract our parents want kids back and we all know that in order to have kids back and to keep them back we have to keep cases of covid off of our sites and we know the kinds of behaviors that will happen that will increase the chances of transmission and spread so we really need our parents to really heed the guidelines of the of the health experts families shouldn't be mixing with other families in backyards at super bowl parties or play dates and things without using the proper precautions we need to be really safe and wear
114masks stay six feet apart be outside as much as we can wash our hands those sound really cliche now because it's so common but we know that works so please take extra precautions and we did ask our parents if they are choosing to travel over the week of the break that they do keep their kids home for the 10-day quarantine recommended by the health department we cannot mandate that as a school district but if you are traveling and you have a an elementary student who's getting ready to transition back we ask you that you stay home and quarantine because our our phase three afternoons are optional so there's no penalty for not coming but i think in good consciousness keep our classrooms safe reduce the chance because if a covid case shows up in one
115of our classes either by a teacher or a student that whole group is going to have to quarantine for a couple of weeks and stay in distance learning and we really want to try to keep our kids on campus so if everyone can help do their part we also want to encourage people to get tested more testing sites are popping up all over the county so we have one at thursday's at central middle school and we want our our kids and our families to be tested as frequently as possible so please take advantage of those resources it's no cost to you to use these community-based testing centers and then with our vaccinations i'm just excited that advocacy worked and that our teachers are going to be next in line when it comes to vaccination so
116lots of positive things to look forward to so thank you to to all of our staff all right thank you dr harmeier and we are going to adjourn back to closed session at this time then i'll return to this open session later and go from there we thank everyone for joining us tonight and also the board managing their cat filters on their zooms well enough so we will thank everyone again if you don't join us when we come back but if not enjoy your break and we'll see you soon thanks for let us know when you're recording and then we'll go from there go ahead all right thanks Alejandro we'll return back from closed session at this time there is nothing to report out from closed session so thank you everyone again for staying with
117us enjoy your break dr harmeier enjoy your break as well Alejandro Veronica thank you again and we'll see everyone when we come back you're welcome thank you Neil thank you Alejandro thanks Veronica